The problem of militant Islam in Europe by Emerson Vermaat

March 22, 2006

Emerson Vermaat:

The Problem of Militant Islam in Europe

On March 7, 2006, local (municipal) elections were held in the Netherlands. Though they were local, the outcome of the elections was also important on the national level – as an indication whether the policies of the ruling rightist Christian-Democrat and liberal coalition were appreciated by the electorate or not. The local elections were won by the leftist Labor Party (PvdA) and the Socialist Party (SP). The Labor Party now expects to win the national elections next year. In the past three years tough measures were taken by the Dutch government to curb illegal immigation. Rita Verdonk (‘Iron Rita'), the conservative liberal Minister of Immigration, presented new laws which were approved by parliament: immigrants now have to learn the Dutch language and acquaint themselves with Dutch society, history and culture before they can apply for full citizenship. For years, immigrants from Muslim countries traveled to their home countries to find a bride, marry her and take her to the Netherlands. Usually these brides came from rural areas and did not know anything about the Netherlands, in a number of cases they could not even read and write. The new Dutch immigration laws seek to control these kind of practices.

Many Muslims in the Netherlands are anything but happy about the new regulations, and openly dislike the Minister of Immigration. Much stronger is their aversion to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim from Somalia who fled to the Nertherlands and later became an influential member of parliament. She belongs to the same political party as Minister Rita Verdonk. Ayaan Hirsi Ali repeatedly warned that militant Islam is a danger society can only neglect at its peril. After she and Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh made the film ‘Submission' (on the suppression of women in Islamic culture) in August 2001, she received numerous death threats. Theo van Gogh was killed by Mohammed Bouyeri, a radical Muslim from Amsterdam. Although both Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh can be critized for some of their statements or for the way ‘Submission' tried to shock public opinion in and outside the Muslim world, there is no justification at all for killing or threatening to kill the makers of that film. Fortunately, the killing of Van Gogh was condemned by many Muslims. Most Muslims strongly disagreed with the policies of the Dutch government also because of the government's pro-American positions such as support for the American military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But in February/March 2006 something happened which was unprecedented in Dutch history. A number of Dutch Muslims and Islamic clerics (‘imams') – most of whom were Moroccans – contacted Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East asking them if it was allowed for a Muslim to vote in a country where sharia law is not applied. They also explained the local political situation in the Netherlands suggesting that the present government was giving Muslims a hard time. Their Middle Eastern friends said something along these lines: ‘Yes, you are allowed to vote, but if you do, vote for one of the leftist parties (something many Moroccan immigrants already do). Four days before the local elections many imams in mosques raised the issue of the elections during the Friday afternoon prayers and openly called on Muslims to vote for one of the leftist parties to teach the ruling coalition of Christian Democrats and liberals a lesson. This is what most Muslims did. It partly explained the clear victory of the Labor Party in the local elections. It shows the growing impact Muslims are making in Dutch society. But it is very worrying because Muslim leaders and clerics from totalitarian coutries like Saudi Arabia where there are no free elections are advising our Muslims here on how to vote. Will this also be the case next year when national elections are being held? In a major city like Rotterdam influential members of the Labor party visited mosques explaining Muslims should not vote for the Christian Democrats but for the Labor Party and this is precisely what many local Muslims did. Paul Scheffer, an authority on immigration in the Netherlands, and Dutch columnist Sylvain Ephimenco recently issued a warning against the danger of ‘clientelism' (Something quite common in countries where many of these migrants have their roots.) From now on, Muslims may ask the Labor Party to reward them by meeting their demands. Is the Labor Party now going to be the party of the mosques, and if this is the case, what kind of demands will be made? Ephimenco asked. Scheffer is worried about the lack of ‘cultural emancipation' which in his view is as important as social and economic emancipation. It will not serve the cause of cultural integration and emancipation if a major political party is subject to pressure by immigrant groups.

Of course, there is nothing against Muslims taking part in the voting process. If they are Dutch citizens, it is their right. But as we said, we should not ignore the possibility of interference by powerful forces in the Middle East into our local affairs, or the problem of clientelism.

The battle between militants and moderates

There is the additional problem of the growing impact militant Islam is making on Europe. This does not refer to most ordinary Muslim voters but to a minority of very vocal militants who have an agenda of their own. There is some similarity between today's militant Muslims and the Nazis who came into power more than seventy years ago. Both are inspired by the same kind of anti-Semitism, they adore obscure conspiration theories like ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' describing secret plans for the creation of a world government controlled by Jews. Islam is by no means the same as National Socialism, yet the growing number of extremist Muslims nowadays may not pose a lesser threat to us, especially if they receive the backing of a state. This applies to many militant or extremist Muslims, certainly not to all Muslims, of course. Indeed, there are numerous Muslims who want live in peace with their neighbor, there are numerous Muslims in Iraq who tremble with fear as they see how extremist elements are increasingly successful in provoking a bloody civil war between Sunnites and Shiites. There are moderate Muslim rulers like king Mohamed VI of Morocco, king Abdullah of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman who have a pro-Western orientation. They are responsible for the introduction of important political and social reforms. Militant and extremist Muslims demand that these reforms be replaced by the traditional and ultraconservative ‘Sharia' law.

There are other examples of countries or lands where the hope for liberalization and reform was dashed by conservative forces who prevailed in the end. Look at Iran, look at the election victory of Hamas in the Palestinian territories. In stable societies, democracy and free elections are good thing, in countries and societies ripped apart by instability and corruption free elections may result in the ideologically committed pushing aside the more moderate forces. This is what the Nazis did after the collapse of the Weimar Republic, this is what Hamas did after the secular minded Palestinian leaders refused to tackle the vast problem of corruption, this is what happened in Iran when the fairly moderate president Khatemi was replaced by the hardliner Ahmedinejad, a former member of the notorious revolutionary guard (a man who was also directly resonsible for the tortuous death of numerous prisoners), this is what nearly happened in Algeria in 1991 had the army not intervened. And this is what could happen in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood would easily win any future election once the ban has been lifted. And what about Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan? He led a miltary coup against an elected government, yet many Western leaders are happy they are dealing with the secular minded Musharraf rather than with a government controlled by extremists. Musharraf is by no means perfect and he is not as powerful as some claim he is but what Pakistan needs at the moment is a more or less stable leader.

It is obvious that the stage is set in the Muslim world for a fierce battle between the militant and the moderate forces. At the moment, the militants seem to prevail at in countries like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This undoubtedly is making an impact on the Muslims living in Europe. Many of them reject the radical interpretation of Islam, but a relatively high number of angry young Muslims idolize Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and other contemporary Islamic ‘Che Guevaras.'

Britain

And then we have quite a few Muslims whose statements in private or when they are among people they trust, fully contradict their statements to reporters from Western media. Take the attacks in London on July 7, 2005, when three metro trains and a double decker bus were targeted by suicide bombers. In media interviews, Hamid Ali, a leading imam in the Al-Madina Masjid mosque in Beeston, Leeds, where the July 7 bombers worshipped, condemned the attacks. ‘The perpetrators ought to be punished,' he told newspapers a week after the attack. But some months later he was visited by a ‘Sunday Times' undercover reporter of Bangladeshi origin posing as a student. In a secretly taped conversation imam Hamid Ali said: ‘What they (the bombers) did was good. They have warned that we are here, we Muslims. People have taken notice. They died so that people would take notice... Big meetings and conferences make no change at all. With this, at least people's ears have pricked up.' In his view, the terrorist attacks in London sort of reflected the growing impact of Islam in Britain. And keep in mind, the same imam had previously publicly condemned these attacks. The ‘Sunday Times' undercover operation in Beeston found that radical views had not subsided in the months after the London bombings. Many Muslims, particularly younger men, expressed admiration for the bombers' "martyrdom".'

On 19 February 2006, the ‘Sunday Telegraph' published the results of a poll conducted by ICM Research which revealed that 40 percent of the British Muslims want sharia law in ‘predominantly Muslim areas of Britain.' Sharia law is a very strict legal system which justifies, among other things, the discrimination of women and the killing of ‘apostate' Muslims (Muslims who no longer consider themselves Muslims, that is). The same newspaper interviewed Patrick Sookhdeo, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and subsequently did a PhD at London University on the religion of Islam. He is director of the ‘Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity.' Sookhdeo pointed out that ‘some Muslims are now pressing to be allowed to have four wives: they say it is part of their religion. They claim that not being allowed four wives is a denial of their religious liberty. There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time – and stay married, in sharia law, to all four.' British laws do not allow polygamy, but these Muslims do not care. What matters to them is sharia law only, they do not recognize the laws on marriage and divorce prescribed by the secular state and they think they are allowed to circumvent them.

Sookhdeo further refers to a strategy laid out by the ‘Islamic Council of Europe.' Part of the strategy is to ‘concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures (...) The next step will be pushing the Government to recognize sharia law for Muslim communities – which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "violating the rights of Muslims" to deny them sharia law.' Sookhdeo believes that ‘in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law. It's already starting to happen.'

Sookhdeo makes a clear distinction between ‘ordinary Muslims and their self-appointed leaders.' The latter refer to those Islamic clerics who believe Islam must be the dominant religion. ‘The best hope for our collective future is that the majority of Muslims who have grown up here have accepted the secular nature of the British state and society, the division between religion and politics, and the importance of allowing people to choose freely how they will live.'

Yet, there is a growing radicalism among Muslim communities. According to the ICM poll, ‘twenty percent of the British Muslims feel sympathy with the July 7 bombers' feelings and motives, seventy five percent, however, does not. One percent feels the attacks were ‘right.'

Sookhdeo claims that the British government, and especially prime minister Tony Blair, do not know enough about the nature of radical Islam. Making concessions to its leaders and ‘apeasement' is an approach that does not work. The results are the opposite from what you expect. The militant leaders' only response to our attitude of appreciation and understanding is their making even fiercer demands and preaching even more hatred against Jews, Americans or westerners in their mosques. Our attitude of understanding is inerpreted by them as weakness. Sookhdeo refers to a book that is available in Muslim bookshops which openly calls for the killing of Jews and Christians, ‘the government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred yet they do nothing about the book.'

Europe's policy of ‘appeasement' did not work in the case of the Palestinians either. The corrupt Palestinian Authority cannot survive without massive European aid money, all the European donations, though, did not deter the Palestinian radical clerics from lashing out against the West and preaching hatred of the Jews in their mosques. European aid did not prevent many angry Palestinians from voting for Hamas, a terrorist organization. We in Europe supported corrupt Palestinian leaders who embezzled European taxpayers' money and for that very reason were hated by the bulk of the population. When I was in Gaza I heard Palestinians complain about Suha, the wife of the late Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. She was living in luxury in Paris having millions in her bank accounts whereas ordinary Palestinians could hardly feed their own children The voters decided to vote for Hamas which so far had not been associated with corruption. So, indirectly, Europe is responsible for the victory of Hamas. The West's good intentions were not properly appreciated and had a contrary effect.

Danish Cartoons

The same applies to the uproar over the cartoons about Mohammed and militant Islam published first in the Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands Posten' (on September 30, 2005) and subsequently in 143 other newspapers in 56 countries. If I were a newspaper editor I myself would not have published these cartoons. Not because I would be afraid of the repercussions but simply because I do not like cartoons which can be considered offensive to any religion, be it the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu religion. The problem, however, is that European newspaper editors should never apologize to Muslim states where the media are sort of encouraged to depict the Jews as bloodthirsty monsters – we are talking here about cartoons often much worse and offensive than the ones which first appeared in ‘Jyllands Posten.' I have seen quite a few of these Arab cartoons myself. One cartoon shows the Israeli flag over the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. A sign says GAZA NOW!!

Ahmed Abu Laban, a Palestinian imam living in Denmark traveled to the Middle East in December 2005 with a 43 page dossier on ‘racial discrimination' and hatred of Muslims in the very country which granted him asylum in 1993 (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates considered him too radical and kicked him out, the Danish were then kind enough to let him in). Not only did he show his friends in the Arab world all the ‘Jyllands Posten' cartoons, but also other more offensive cartoons which never appeared in any Danish newspaper. Acccording to John C. Thompson from the Canadian ‘Mackenzie Institute' ‘a photograph of the winner of a French hog-calling contest in a pig mask was represented as being another slur of Mohammed in Denmark.'

At the end of January 2006 violent protests began to spread over the Middle East and the Muslim world. In a number of Muslim countries Danish citizens were threatened to death. Danish and Norwegian flags were burned (a small Christian newspaper in Norway had also published the cartoons), Danish embassies and consulates were attacked by violent mobs, even in a country as far away as Indonesia. In an interview with the Arab TV channel ‘Al-Jazeera' Ahmed Abu Laban – speaking Arab – called for a boycott of Danish products. He said: ‘If the Arab countries decide in favor of a boycott and Muslims all over the world feel it is their duty to defend the honor of the prophet, this will be a sign then that the Muslim community is taking the right decision.'

But to journalists from the Western media he said exactly the oppostie: No, he was not in favor of a boycott, in fact he had even called on the Arab world to end it. Saying one thing to Arab audiences, friends or people you trust and quite another thing to Western journalists, is not so rare among Muslim leaders or self-appointed spokesmen. We already mentioned the imam from Beeston, Leeds, who publicly condemned the terrorrist attacks of July 7, 2005, but lauded the attackers in a private conversation. Another example was Yassir Arafat. In interviews in English with Western media he consistently condemned suicide attacks in Israel, but in a speech in Arab to a trusted audience he praised Wafa Idris, the first female suicide bomber. In addition, Arafat personally signed documents authorizing payments to individuals who were preparing suicide attacks.

Denials

Muslim extremists suspected of links to terrorism have been on trial in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy. In all these trials there was a common pattern of denials or lame excuses by most terrorist suspects. They usually claim it is not they who are on trial but their Islamic beliefs. It is simply a question of religious freedom. Intelligence services, police investigators and prosecuters collected a lot of information showing the reverse is true: many of those on trial did have links to terrorist networks and a number of them were indeed planning a terrorist attack. Due to timely arrests their plans were frustrated, sometimes shortly before these plans were to be carried out. A good example is Samir Azzouz from the Netherlands. In his apartment the police found sketches of and personal notes regarding the headquarters of the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), Schiphol Airport, the Dutch Parliament (Second Chamber), the nuclear powerplant at Borssele and the Ministry of Defense building. In addition, he was in the process of obtaining explosives but he obviously lacked the technological skills to make a real bomb. A lower court in Rotterdam acquitted Samir Azzouz for lack of evidence. The Appeals Court in The Hague ruled in November 2005 that Samir Azzouz was planning something evil, yet they also acquitted him. It was not a very wise decision. On one of his sketches Samir had written down the word ‘Silaa7,' and initially the prosecutors did not know what he meant by this. Later they found out it simply meant ‘my weapon.' During the court sessions Samir's lawyer Victor Koppe argued that his client was nothing else but some sort of do-it-yourselver, a tinker, he was not as dangerous as the prosecutor and the media claimed he was.

Another example is Zacaria Taybi, one of those on trial in Amsterdam as a suspected member of the so-called Hofstadgroup, a loose network of young Muslim militants in the Netherlands. Taybi was the trusted friend of Mohammed Bouyeri's, a prominent menber of the Hofstadgroup. On November 2, 2004, the latter would kill the Dutch filmmaker and columnist Theo van Gogh. Taybi was often present at house meetings in Bouyeri's small house in Amsterdam-West. Taybi accompanied Jason Walters, another friend of his, on a trip to Pakistan the purpose of which was probably to receive training in a terrorist training camp (after a warning from the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service AIVD, the Pakistani intelligence service put them under heavy serveillance, so these plans came to nothing). Four months earlier Walters, had also been in Pakistan, possibly for training in a camp run by ‘Jaish-e-Mohammed,' a Kashmiri terrorist network linked to Al-Qaeda. After he returned from Pakistan Walters boasted in internet chat conversations about having received weapons training in a camp. But in court he denied ever to have been in such a camp. He was just boasting to impress others, nothing else, he said. The judges of the court did not believe him. Walters has an American father and a Dutch mother. He converted to Islam when he was still a teenager. When the police tried to arrest him on November 10, 2004, he threw a grenade at them thereby wounding five policemen.

When Zacaria Taybi was arrested in November 2004, he told the police:

‘You still have time to convert to Islam. Know that ultimately Islam will be victorious. If you don't become Muslims, you still have three years before you will perish.'

But in court Taybi said: ‘I am not a terrorist nor am I a strict Muslim. I do not agreee with the views of Bouyeri nor of those of the strict believers.'

In the court session of 24 February 2006, public prosecutor Koos Plooy summarized what was really going in the minds of most members of the Hofstadgroup as follows:

‘These suspects followed only one radical political interpretation of Islam, it stimulated and urged them to a violent jihad against the unbelievers and the apostates, against anyone offending the prophet. By rejecting democracy they aimed at creating an Islamic state based on sharia law, using violence in the process.'

These words, Plooy, argued, also applied to Zacaria Taybi.

Denmark

There about 200 000 Muslims in Denmark. Most of them are peaceful citizens. The problems are asually caused by radical Islamic clerics such as Ahmed Abu Laban who turn Muslims against the western secular state. In 1999/2000 Abu Laban was quoted as saying that he wanted Muslims in Denmark to produce more children in order to become so numerous that they could take over the country. After the September 11 attacks in America, he was quoted as saying that he considers Osama bin Laden to be a holy man, an ascetic, a man he looks up to.

Like in other European countries something is brewing, it actually started some time ago and it has to do with the Jews living in Denmark. (Mind you, in the years of the Nazi occupation the Danes protected their Jews by giving them a place to hide or sending them to neutral Sweden.) In August 2002, a Muslim group in Denmark announced that a thirty-thousand dollar bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews. In 2004 a university lecturer of Moroccan-Jewish descent was kidnapped by a group of Arab Muslims. He was a lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies of the University of Copenhagen. During one his lectures he was citing from the

Koran, just to show the students what a Koran recital would consist of. He was quite familiar with classic Arabic. Later he was picked up in the streets, taken into a car in broad daylight and beaten up severely. The reason they attacked him was for citing the Koran. Rediculous of course, but a Jew or an infidel, his attackers felt, was not allowed to do that.

‘Nothing similar has happened during Copenhagen's University's more than 500 year long history,' says Lars Hedegaard from ‘The Free Press Society' in Denmark. And he adds:

‘Is it known that Jewish children are advised not to attend public schools for fear that their presence might cause offence to pupils of Arab or Muslim descent? Or that Denmark's only Jewish school has to be protected by a double ring of barbed wire and elaborate electronic surveillance?'

Nasar Khader, a moderate Muslim and a member of Parliament, has to fear for his life after he gave his daughter the Christian first name of Sophie. He also happens to be a strong advocate of the secular state, another reason, of course, to target him. Nothing was heard from Ahmed Abu Laban when these incidents happened. On the contrary, during one of his Friday prayers he referred to Nasar Khader and his supporters in the Muslim community as ‘rats in a hole.'

France

What happens in France, may be even worse. The suburbs of the big cities are hotbests of crime and Islamic extremism, a very deadly mix indeed. Many suburbs of Paris are partly controlled by gangs consisting of people from North African or African descend. It was only after the riots in the suburbs in October/November 2005, that the media really began to pay attention to this problem but the explosion of aggressive violence against ‘white Europeans' (a Belgian television team was told: ‘We don't want you here, only journalists from Arab countries are wellcome') did not come out of the blue. It was in the air for some time, especially in Paris.

One of the gangs called itself ‘the Barbarians.' On January 27, 2006, they kidnapped a young Jewish man named Ilan Halimi. The gang expected Jews to have enough money to pay the ransom, but in the end they were motivated by their hatred of the Jews rather than by the prospect of receiving money. In phonecalls they recited verses from the Koran. According to the Israeli newspaper ‘Ha'aretz' they tortured their victim, cut him and poured flammable liquid on him and set him alight. Three weeks after the kidnapping Ilan was found near a suburban train station south of Paris, naked, handcuffed and gagged, with burns covering 80 percent of his body. He died on the way to the hospital. ‘We don't call for revenge, we call for justice,' somebody from the Jewish community said. ‘We want to know if a French Jew can live a normal life when he is on the territory of France.' It was not the first time a Jew was killed in Paris simply because he was a Jew. In 2004 the 23-year old Sebastien Selam was brutally murdered by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was cut twice. Adel yelled: ‘I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven.'

The leader of the ‘gang of the Barbarians' was Youssouf Fofana, a Muslim immigrant from Ivory Coast and a French citizen as well. In February 2006 he fled to his country of origin where he expected to be safe from prosecution. He stayed in a hotel under his own name (‘Fofana, Youssouf, Paris, nationality: French') and did not take any precautions as he drove through the streets of Abidjan, the capital of this African state. But it did not take long for him to be arrested at the request of the French authorities. About one week before he was expelled to France, Fofana gave a TV interview from his prison prison cell in Abidjan. The interview shocked France. Fofana looked relaxed and smiled, he displayed an attitude of arrogance. (The French weekly ‘Paris Match' published five photos showing how a smiling prisoner Fofana was kissed and embraced by a local girlfriend – a behavior and a display of arrogance which was, ‘Paris Match' correctly notes, highly offensive to the relatives of his victim.) On television he admitted to have kidnapped Halimi, but it had nothing to do with anti-Semitism he said, and he denied he was responsible for Halimi's death. He claimed he had read in the newspapers that Halimi had died, then he took the decision to travel Ivory Coast to join his brothers in the expectation of being safe there. Then, so he claimed in the interview, he noticed that the killing of Halimi had become a political issue –‘and then I was scared.' Fofana showed no regrets over what he had done, on the contrary, rather was he afraid of what could happen to himself once Halimi's murder had received massive media attention. He is also held responsible for six previous kidnapping attempts. Moderate Muslims and moderate Muslim leaders were also upset by what the ‘gang of the barbarians' had done and expressed solidarity with Halimi's relatives and friends. In the homes of gang members police found Salafist writings and pro-Palestinian propaganda. Salafism is an ultraconservative movement within Islam. Part of it is nonviolent. The other part of the Salafist movement is extremist and violent and provides some of the ideological background to people belonging to Al-Qaeda, the Hofstadgroup and other terrorist networks. The terrorists who struck in Madrid in March 2004, were Salafists. You also find Salafists in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain where a number of imams propagate its extremist version in their mosques.

In June 2004, the French ‘Central Directorate of General Intelligence' (DCRG) of the police issued a report about 630 problematic suburbs and areas. About 300 suburbs were evolving into real ghettos and some 200 suburbs were increasingly dominated by militant Islamic clerics who declared war on democracy, the secular state and the Jews. There are parallel societies which allow practices of polygamy. (This practice is also very popular among immigrants from sub-Saharan countries, especially Mali.) Members of a French State commission investigated the problem of the so-called headscarf worn by conservative Muslim women. They discovered that behind the scenes much more was going on than was apparent just from such an innocent piece of textile. They heard stories about Jewish and female teachers who had been subjected to harassment by Muslim pupils. Teaching about the holocaust was virtually made impossible. In one French school a Muslim pupil threatened that a Jewish pupil who would dare to arrive with a yarmulke on his head would be lynched immediately.

What is happening in France is the arrival of a new kind of anti-Semitism which is not less militant than that of the Nazis some sixty years ago.

Apart from Jews, female teachers are also targeted by pupils who show no respect for western values and normal rules of behavior. In most cases the problems are caused by pupils of African or North African descent. In September 2005, Karen-Montet-Toutain, a young and pretty female teacher in a school in Étampes (South of Paris) was confronted by a pupil from another classroom who threatened to rape her. She informed the school principals about the threat, but nothing happened. Early December, a few pupils told her: ‘We can find out where you live and then you'll have a bullet in your head.' Karen informed the French school inspector, and again there was no response. On December 15, she suspended a pupil whom she had given warnings on three previous occasions. The next day he returned to the classroom with a knife and stabbed her down. She had to undergo surgery in a hospital and barely survived. The school inspectors told the press that Karen Montet-Toutain had been telling the truth, but they refused to blame the school for what had happened. About the incident in September they lamely said: ‘It was a verbal sexual aggression but not a concrete threat.' And shortly after Karen Montet-Toutain was almost stabbed to death in her classroom, Gilles de Robien, the Minister of Education, said that the school principals had not made any mistakes. Karen Montet-Toutain did not agree, of course. She had repeatedly informed her superiors about the threats issued against her urging them to intervene but they simply failed to act. Most of the incidents occur in schools located in the migrant rich suburbs of Paris and other big cities. In the schoolyear 2004-2005 there were some 80 000 violence related incidents in French schools.

In 2002, Samira Bellil, a courageous young second generation immigrant from Algeria, published a shocking book on what was going on in the suburbs of Paris where she grew up herself. She refers to cruel fathers who beat up their daughters, group rapes by young men belonging to armed gangs and she describes a culture of revenge. She writes about the ‘Kabylian smile,' a term popular among North African youth gangs and meaning slicing your throat. The authorities are, so it seems, completely powersless and overwhelmed, at least they fail to take effective action. Apparently, they do not want to be accused of ‘racism.' There was no way of accusing young French-Algerian woman like Samira Bellil of racism. She and her friends founded a movement of women who challenged the macho culture and the atmosphere of intolerance in the suburbs of the big cities. Of course, many Muslims condemn violent behavior and group rapes, on the other hand they often keep silent about the crimes committed by people who claim to be Muslims as well. Unfortunately, media attention is usually limited to a few spectacular crimes like the killing of Halimi.

Another problem is the war in Iraq. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks are recruitings young Muslims in Europe.

Conclusion

The massive migration from Muslims to Europe has not just brought us good and pleasant things such as cultural enrichment. These immigrants have also imported cultural habits like honor crimes and crime in general. The Dutch criminologists Cyrille Fijnaut and Frank Bovenkerk pointed out that Turkish, Kurdish and Moroccan immigrant groups play a significant role in the drugs trade in the Netherlands. Kurds from Turkey, for example, ‘play a large role in the herion trade because they come from the east and southeast of the country and have ties with neighboring countries from which the opium comes.'

A Dutch government report issued in December 2005 notes that prisons are used by terrorists to recruit criminals (especially if they have a Muslim background, but there are also many cases of so-called converts to Islam). The contacts between criminals and followers of radical Islam are a matter of corcern, the report says. It may be an indication that radical preachers have something to offer them: another career using the same criminal methods but now in the service of Allah. This is also happening in Belgium and Spain.

A relatively new phenonemon is the fact that an increasing number of Muslim immigrants in Europe are attracted by radicalism and even terrorism, particularly after the September 11 attacks in America. Especially Europe's second generation Muslims are susceptible to recruitment by extremists. The militants now benefit from the chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan (which they themselves, to a large extend, helped to create) and repeated and not always unfounded allegations of human rights abuses linked to the so-called ‘war on terror' (‘See what the Americans and their friends are doing!'). The militants and extremists have one agenda only: they seek to gradually take over Europe. Spokesmen for Al-Qaeda already announced that they want to restore Islamic rule in large parts of Spain. For centuries Muslims were in control of Southern Spain but they were driven out at the end of the Middle Ages. The militants refer to the glorious times of ‘Al-Andalus' which must return. The extremists also want to cut off the transfer of oil to the West in order to force it on its knees. That is why they frequently attack pipelines and oil installations in Iraq. On February 24, 2006, suicide terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda targeted the largest oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. Two cars from the Saudi company ‘Aramco' loaded with explosives were approaching the outer gates but security guards opened fire just in time and the cars exploded. In oil rich Nigeria a civil war between the Muslims in the north and the Christians in the south is about to break out. Such a conflict will only benefit terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda. Oil from Nigeria will no longer flow to the West. There is an urgent need for getting rid of our dependence on the massive consumption of oil, replacing it by an economy based on renewable sources of energy.

The biggest threat to peace and stability in Europe is the presence of relatively large numbers of militant and angry young Muslims who seek to impose their will on state and society. It seems the rulers of Europe do not know how to respond to this new challenge. Such fatal hesitation will only contribute to worsening the situation. Recently, a number of Dutch Muslim organizations decided to legally challenge all those who ‘offend' Islam or the Muslims. Their lawyer Nico Steijnen announced he would even appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. Killing freedom of speech in the name of other freedoms is a means to the end, and those who love sharia law and hate the West like to go to the utmost to exploit the western legal system they so utterly abhor. Dutch immigation authorities are trying to cope with radical Muslims from other countries who are legally fighting their extradition. One case is already before the European Court of Human Rights. This militant Muslim who tried to recruit others has been declared an undesirable alien, yet he cannot be expelled because he appealed to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.')

March 2006

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Sources:

Talpa TV (Netherlands), ‘Barend en Van Dorp,' 7 March 2006 (remarks by Dutch Moroccan Ali Eddaoui on the role of Islamic scholars from the Middle East advising Dutch Muslims on how to vote).

Volzin. Opineblad voor Geloof en Samenleving, 24 February 2006 (examples of anti-Semitic cartoons in Arab media, ‘Israeli flag over Auschwitz'). Also an interview with the Dutch theologian Hans Jansen, an expert on anti-Semitism (not to be confused with professor J.J.G. (‘Hans') Jansen, a wellknown Dutch expert on Islam and the Koran.

Daniel Pipes en Lars Hedegard, Something rotten in Denmark?, in: New York Post, 27 August 2002 (‘A Muslim group in Denmark announced a few days ago that a thirty-thousand dollar bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews.')

Emerson Vermaat, a law graduate and an investigative reporter from the Netherlands, reported from many war zones and crises areas (Latin America, Central America, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Westbank, Pakistan, Philippines, China, South East Asia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Albania, former East Germany, former Soviet Union). He is specialized in foreign policy, terrorism and crime. His minidocumentary ‘The Making of a Suicide Bomber' (1996) was on television all over the world. In 1997 he published a Dutch book on Islamic terrorism being the first book in Europe which discussed the role of Osama bin Laden in international terrorism. He recently published a book on the ‘Hofstadgroep,' a network of Muslim radicals in the Netherlands. His website is: www.emersonvermaat.com.